Photo Credit: Michael Bacigalupi
By Hunt Palmer
THE STORY
Name a phase of the game. LSU dominated it Saturday night.
The Tigers bested No. 2 seed Dallas Baptist from start to finish and took control of the Baton Rouge Regional with a 12-0 win.
Pitching. Kade Anderson may not have had his best stuff early, but he was tough as nails. The sophomore southpaw shut the Patriot bats out over seven innings. He only faced two hitters with a runner in scoring position, both in the second inning. He only faced three over the minimum the rest of the way, all singles.
Defense. LSU played errorless baseball and made the highlight reel play. Derek Curiel snared a sinking line drive with one out in the third and made the heads up play to hop up and double Keaton Grady off at first. The Patriot baserunner overslid the bag on the way bag and then touched the wrong first base as Jared Jones applied the tag.
The Patriots botched a squeeze bunt from Luis Hernandez in the third. Micah Bucknam, the pitcher, was late to cover and dropped the throw.
Then DBU failed to record an out on an LSU steal-and-stop in the sixth. The Tigers had runners on the corners and one out and were willing to concede the rundown out between first and second while the runner scored from third. Hernandez beat the rundown as no one covered second base.
Speaking of no one covering. Hernandez advanced to third on a steal of second in the third inning. No one was at third base as he reached second, so he took the extra 90 feet. He would score on a Curiel single. LSU dominated the baserunning portion of the game, too.
The final two defensive gaffs by the Patriots came in the eighth. Frey launched a missile of a triple off the top of the wall in leftcenter. The centerfielder mishandled the ball upon retrieval and allowed Frey to motor all the way around for LSU’s 10th run. Then a routine chopper to second was whiffed for the fourth error of the night.
Coaching. Even Jay Johnson got the best of DBU head coach Dan Heefner who had what can only be described as a brutal night for the Patriot skipper.
He committed a minor sin by playing the infield back in a 6-0 game to allow a Chris Stanfield ground ball to score LSU’s seventh run. That ultimately didn’t matter.
His greatest fault was deploying his best arm, James Ellwanger, with a five-run deficit and Anderson on the mound. Ellwanger worked 4.1 excellent and meaningless innings to burn him for the weekend. Now DBU must win three games in a row without him. That could matter.
Johnson’s team was prepared and performed for nine innings.
The Tiger bats scored in five of the first seven innings and were only retired in order once, the third.
Ethan Frey’s slicing two-run double down the first base line on a 3-2 slider from Bucknam was impressive stuff. That got LSU on the board in the first. Entering the game, Bucknam had a 48 percent whiff rate on that pitch. Frey smoked it.
Stanfield tallied his first home run of the year with an opposite field job in the second.
LSU’s lone wobble of the night was DJ Primeaux’s entrance in relief. He walked the first two men he faced in a 9-0 game. Jacob Mayers entered an immediately blew three straight 98 mph heaters by Grant Jay before issuing a walk of his own to load the bases. No issue, though. He got Chayton Krauss to fly to center to leave the bases loaded and preserve the 9-0 lead.
William Schmidt got his regional feet wet. He struck out three in the ninth inning.
THE SCORECARD
Kade Anderson’s line: 7IP, 4H, 0R, 2BB, 11K, 106 pitches, 71 strikes.
– Anderson and Anthony Eyanson combined on 14.2 scoreless innings in the regional.
James Ellwanger’s line: 4.1IP, 4H, 3R, 3ER, 3BB, 5K, 92 pitches, 52 strikes.
Ethan Frey: 2-for-4, 2B, 3B, 2RBI, 3R
Steven Milam: 2-for-2, 4R, 2BB
Chris Stanfield: 3-for-4, HR, 3RBI
LSU outhit DBU 10-to-4.
No DBU player had multiple hits.
Dallas Baptist pitching issued seven walks and hit five batters to go with the four errors.
THE QUOTES
LSU starter Kade Anderson on he and Anthony Eyanson saving the bullpen…
“I think as a starting pitcher your goal is to save the ‘pen as much as you can for the next game. I feel like Anthony and I did a good job. I mean, we’ve got too many pitchers and not enough arms tomorrow. I think we’re in a good situation, and I couldn’t be more excited to watch them pitch.”
LSU coach Jay Johnson on his team’s performance…
“That was a really good offensive performance tonight. Getting guys one. Executing the bunting game. We ran the bases smart and aggressive. Clutch hitting. Two-out hard-and-low line drives. Extra base hits. That’s a lot of what the blueprint looks like.”
Dallas Baptist coach Dan Heefner on using James Ellwanger out of the bullpen trailing by five runs…
“Knowing how a regional works, if you win the first two, you shrink it. You only have four games maximum. If you lose one of the first two, you’re going to have to play five. Even though we knew we were facing Kade Anderson, and he’s really tough, we do feel like we’ve got a good offense. We thought James could come in a throw up a few zeros. Looking at what’s the best opportunity to win a regional, that’s why we brought him in. And he did a good job for us. We just didn’t put the at bats together.”
Heefner on Micah Bucknam’s return to LSU…
“He definitely — I think he was excited to be able to come back here and throw. He’s had an outstanding season for us. He was our number one Friday night guy. He’s been dominant throughout the year. He had an injury where he was shut down for a while.
Last week was his first time back through just electric, lights out for three innings. But he did go about four weeks without throwing before that.
So obviously I’m sure there’s some emotion there coming back and throwing here again. But in my mind it doesn’t take away from anything what he’s done for us. We’re not here without Micah Bucknam and what he’s done for us over the course of the season.”
WHAT’S NEXT
DBU now plays an elimination game against No. 4 seed Little Rock at 2:oo on Sunday. The winner will have to come back and beat LSU Sunday night at 8:00 and again on Monday. LSU is one win away from the Super Regional Round.
The Tigers have not used Zac Cowan, Casan Evans, Jaden Noot, Chase Shores, Conner Ware or Cooper Williams to this point.
